Accusing him of “going along with Tory plans to shove the cost of higher education onto students and their families,” Ms. Harman told Mr. Clegg that he was like a college freshman who meets “a dodgy bloke” during the first week of classes “and you do things that you regret.”

Here’s a tip from reality-world: it isn’t that important to an individual if one insists that the state pay for it. Leeches see it as shoving the cost of education on to families and students, but in reality it is those very students and families that are shoving the cost of their own education on to taxpayers.

Higher education is like any other commodity. It has a different value to different people because it is more useful to some than to others, and if it is worth so little to you that you expect others to pay for it (and indeed will fight in an effort to force others to pay for it), you don’t deserve the privilege of earning one.